Verity Healthcare

Novo Nordisk is increasing its attain within the weight problems medicines market by making its blockbuster weight reduction drug Wegovy accessible on to sure sufferers for greater than half off the product’s listing worth.

The brand new providing introduced Wednesday is open to uninsured sufferers who pay for his or her medicines in money in addition to these whose insurance coverage doesn’t cowl weight problems medicine. Sufferers will nonetheless want a prescription for the once-weekly injectable drug. However relatively going to a standard pharmacy, sufferers will fill their prescriptions via NovoCare, a brand new on-line pharmacy arrange by the Danish pharmaceutical big.

NovoCare will provide all dosage strengths of Wegovy in single-dose injection pens that might be shipped on to a affected person’s dwelling. The month-to-month worth for Wegovy obtained via NovoCare is $499, which is a steep low cost from the wholesale worth of $1,349 for 4 Wegovy injection pens.

Novo Nordisk reported 65.1 billion Danish krone (about $9.4 billion) in gross sales for weight problems merchandise in 2024, a 56% improve over gross sales within the prior yr. The overwhelming majority of that income got here from Wegovy. The pharma big desires to guard that income from opponents. Its new Wegovy providing is the most recent salvo within the ongoing battle between makers of branded weight problems medicine and compounding pharmacies.

Robust demand for each Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound led to shortages of these merchandise. Compounding pharmacies pounced, taking market share with their custom-made, lower-cost variations of GLP-1 weight problems medicine, a few of which had been offered on-line. Novo and Lilly have challenged the purity and high quality of compounded weight problems medicine, however these variations of their medicine had been permitted so long as the drug shortages continued.

Late final month, the FDA declared the greater than two-year scarcity was over for merchandise containing semaglutide, the primary ingredient in Wegovy. The shortages for tirzepatide, the primary ingredient in Zepbound, was declared resolved final December. Outsourcing Amenities Affiliation, a corporation that represents compounders, is suing the FDA for the strikes, contending that shortages persist and the regulator’s actions had been made with out due course of. Each fits are filed within the U.S. District Courtroom for the Northern District of Texas.

Novo Nordisk’s NovoCare mirrors LillyDirect, a direct-to-patient digital well being platform from Eli Lilly. Final August, LillyDirect added Zepbound as an providing for sufferers who don’t have insurance coverage that covers weight problems medicine. Vials of Zepbound are shipped on to eligible sufferers, who should additionally acquire syringes to manage the drug themselves. After this new providing launched, Lee Brown of analysis agency Third Bridge informed MedCity Information that direct-to-patient gross sales allow pharma corporations to make use of ecommerce to compete towards compounders and circumvent conventional pharmacies and pharmacy profit managers.

When Lilly initially unveiled this new Zepbound providing final yr, solely 2.5 mg and 5 mg doses had been accessible, the bottom of the six doses accessible in injection pens. Final week, Lilly added 7.5 mg and 10 mg doses to this system. These new doses will price $499 per thirty days, which is a greater than 50% low cost from Zepbound accessible in injection pens. Lilly additionally lower the costs of the two.5 mg vial to $349 per thirty days, and the 5 mg vial to $499 per thirty days.

NovoCare’s shipments of Wegovy might be fulfilled by CenterWell Pharmacy, the mail-order pharmacy enterprise of well being insurer Humana. Wegovy isn’t the one product supplied via this new platform. NovoCare additionally lists Novo Nordisk diabetes merchandise in addition to the pharma big’s medicine for growth-related problems, hemophilia, and hyperoxaluria.

“As we speak, over 55 million folks within the U.S. have protection particularly for weight administration medicines, and 90% of Wegovy® sufferers with protection pay $0 to $25 a month for Wegovy,” Dave Moore, govt vice chairman, U.S. operations and world enterprise improvement and president of Novo Nordisk, mentioned in a ready assertion. “With NovoCare Pharmacy, sufferers and prescribers alike have another choice that gives handy entry to all doses of actual, FDA-approved Wegovy at a lowered price in our high-quality pen.”

Picture: Michael Siluk/UCG/Common Photos Group, through Getty Photos